By the Numbers: Tempus Fugit

It’s been two weeks since my last By the Numbers post, where I noted that it seemed the matchmaker volatility had largely calmed down for me. Nothing I’ve seen since has given me pause to reconsider. I understand it’s not working for everyone, but at this point- for me at least- I’m playing the game as Pixonic intends.

That means leveling my bots and weapons, while at the same time adjusting expectation. I’m not going to be coming in first every game anymore. Or even third.

Sometimes I’ll be the 800-pound gorilla, smashing the enemy left and right.

Other times, I’m a pygmy marmoset, there to give free Silver to my foes. Even then, if I manage to learn something in the battle, I can walk away a better player for having experienced it.

I’m very curious to see how the numbers compare to the previous round of data. I captured another 110 pilots from ten consecutive games, so that upward and downward progression (when I won or lost) would be taken into consideration.

Here are my statistics at time of writing.

Level: 30

Cups: 358

Victories: 584

Hangar Slots: 5

Bots (level, type, highest weapon level)

7 Boa 8

7 Galahad 7

6 Griffin 5

5 Stalker 6

3 Doc 5

Now, let’s look at the numbers.

Average Player Level: 28.92 (+0.75)

No surprises here. This figure is likely to bounce around the Level 30 ceiling, and won’t tell us very much unless something drastically changes (league systems, level cal raised, etc). By this point, most pilots I’ll be encountering are either 30 or very close to it.

Average Victories: 740.61 (-29.13)

No surprises here, either, except that it’s on par with what I saw two weeks ago. This means that the cohort of experienced players I was previously paired with has remained about the same. Interestingly, the median value is 540.50, very close to my own. On this basis, I’m within my peer group in terms of games won (which I use as a proxy for experience).

Average Trophies: 384.28 (+94.16)

If I use victories as a proxy for experience, the trophies I use to indicate level of activity. You get trophies for doing damage, so I’m either in a group that’s dealing significantly more damage during a comparable number of games played, or the players I’m getting grouped with are more active.

There’s no way to know for certain, and it could be a number of smaller factors. If some casual players, dissatisfied with the new matchmaking system, have dropped out of the player pool, leaving more veterans who have opted to ride it out, that’s certainly one possibility.

In the last fortnight I’ve been leveling up by hangar, so it stands to reason my peer group has as well. That does translate into an increased capacity for damage dealing (and thus, more trophies), but unlikely to explain an increase of this significance.

Percent of Players with Three Hangar Slots: 11.82% (-12.73%)

It wasn’t all that long ago when 75% of my opponents only rocked three bots in the battle. That’s becoming increasingly scarce, and with good reason. Veteran players are those most likely to adhere to the crucial maxim, “slots before bots.” I’ll probably refine this metric for future data posts; as-is it is increasingly irrelevant. It’s simply more useful now to note the percentage of players with four slots (61.82%) and the full max (26.36%).

Average Robot Level: 7.72 (+0.24)

Average Highest Weapon Level: 8.11 (+0.26)

Now we get into the real meat and potatoes- the quality of the opposition’s gear. This gets right to the thorininess of the issue. When I hear players distressed at what they’re facing in the matchmaker, it’s not that the other guy had 2000 trophies or 3000 victories. It was the machinery they had to face, and the machinery that inevitably did them in.

Given that I’ve only just procured the Doc, my above hangar’s average bot level of 5.60 is a little low, giving the average opponent a whole two levels on me. We see the same with the weapons, where my average high weapon level is about two levels below (6.20 vs 8.11).

This indicates that gearwise, I’m below average. Results-wise, I recently climbed as high as a 60% win percentage- which I’ve subsequently tanked (with a Hydra Doc and Ancilot– more on this in the next Battle Stories post).

In short, it’s a notable discrepancy, but I’m not feeling outgunned or outclassed. Or when I am, I’m generally not feeling like I can’t at least contribute to the team.

What Bots are People Running

These are the bots I ran into this time around. I’ve also included the stats from two weeks ago (post-MM), and from the article before that (pre-MM).

As we can see, the Golem and Stalker both dipped the most. It’s worth pointing out that the 8.05% for the Stalker post-MM may have been a blip, and 5% be around its “natural rate.” I’ve also been concerned at the disappearance of the Boa, since that’s long been my primary bot. Do they know something I don’t, I wonder?

Few surprises with the big winners. The Griffin continues to be the bot that almost everyone has at least one of, and that’s been consistent all the way through. Carnages, Galahads, Leos, Rhinos…these are all top-of-the-meta bots for whatever sorting bracket I’m in.

I’ve also had some very rare Wild Bunch sightings, too, but whether it’s due to exclusivity or a perceived lack of quality, it’s impossible to tell.

In some ways, this is a fairly uninteresting status update, since most things have remained steady over the last couple of weeks. But then, given the volatility surrounding the new matchmaker rollout, I have to note that the actual “ordinariness” of the results is itself fairly remarkable. I’m in a steady game environment now, where I have been for the past couple of weeks.

I genuinely feel for those players who continue to report poor experiences, though decreasing in number. Hopefully things will work themselves out for them like they have for me.

That’s all for now. While my gameplay hasn’t been statistically exciting, I’ve had plenty to keep me busy with some major lineup changes. Look for the next Battle Stories in a few days!